Goldman Sachs Group Inc., based in New York, set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier and enough to pay each worker $527,192 for the period.

I'm sure Goldman Sachs response to the general public outrage will be to blame and thus fire the person responsible for executive compensation instead of realize their pig is so big and fat, no lipstick anywhere can help.

The World is dividing into two blocs - the Plutonomy and the rest. The U.S.,UK, and Canada are the key Plutonomies - economies powered by the wealthy. Continental Europe (ex-Italy) and Japan are in the egalitarian bloc.

we hear so often about “the consumer”. But when we examine the data, there is no such thing as “the consumer”

....in the U.S. or UK, or other plutonomy countries.There are rich consumers, and there are the rest. The rich are getting richer, we have contended, and they dominate consumption.As the rich have been getting richer, so too stocks associated with the rich, have performed exceptionally well. Our Plutonomy Basket, generated returns of 17.8% perannum, on average, from 1985. If Plutonomy continues, which we think it will, if income inequality is allowed to persist and widen, the plutonomy basket should continue to do very well.